Emerson Beyer, former Director of Exhibitions Fundraising at the Museum of the City of New York, has been appointed the Executive Foundation and Corporate Giving Officer with Environmental Defense.

Emerson received his MA in Arts Administration from the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also worked in the development office as a Foundation and Corporate Relations Assistant responsible for a portfolio of modern and contemporary art exhibitions.

In 2002, he was accepted to the Ford Foundation's Program Associate program, and for two years worked in the Foundation's GrantCraft initiative. GrantCraft studies foundation program and management strategies, and produces research and consulting products. Emerson presented workshops through the (U.S.) Council on Foundations, the European Foundation Center, the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the International Leadership Association, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers' Network, and others. He completed a two-year professional certification program in Organizational Dynamics at the William Alanson White Institute, a psychoanalytic training institute.

After a year as Senior Manager of Corporate and Foundation Relations at the New York Restoration Project—a park restoration, environmental education, and community gardening organization—he joined the Museum of the City of New York in 2005, and helped organize exhibitions about the legacy of city-planning giant Robert Moses, the evolution of diverse Jewish and Catholic communities in the city, and the history of New York baseball.

About Environmental Defense

Environmental Defense is a leading national nonprofit organization representing more than 500,000 members. Since 1967, we have linked science, economics and law to create innovative, equitable and cost-effective solutions to society's most urgent environmental problems.

Four decades ago, Environmental Defense helped launch the modern environmental era by winning a ban on DDT, the pesticide Rachel Carson warns about in Silent Spring. DDT causes eggshells to thin and break, threatening the survival of magnificent birds like the osprey, bald eagle and peregrine falcon. It is also a persistent poison that works its way up the food chain, thus endangering humans as well. The fledgling effort by a handful of scientists on Long Island to halt the use of DDT was a remarkable demonstration of how individuals can bring about lasting change. The group incorporated as the Environmental Defense Fund in 1967.